GODFREY — Leading by six late in the third quarter, the Alton Redbirds were poised for a late-season signature victory.

Then the turnover bugaboo happened, Again, and again, and again. Twenty of them to be exact.

And from the last minute of the third quarter on, it was all Belleville West, which outscored the Redbirds 22-5 the rest of the way, including 20-5 in the fourth quarter to take a 52-41 Southwestern Conference victory on Tuesday at Alton High School.

The Redbirds (13-11, 6-7) turned it over seven times in the fourth quarter, Belleville West (17-8, 9-4) was getting easy transition possessions going the other way and it was an avalanche of mistakes that couldn’t be contained.

“It’s tough to win a basketball game when you turn it over 20 times to a team that’s as good as they are,” Alton coach Eric Smith said. “… We turned it over at a high rate the entire game.”

The Redbirds led 36-30 late in the third and had the ball with under a minute to play. It seemed as if they were going for the last shot and at the very least, would carry a six-point lead heading into the fourth.

But an ill-advised long-range 3-point attempt by Kevin Caldwell, who finished with 12 points, was off the mark, the Maroons got a bucket from Keith Randolph to make it 36-32 and carried that momentum into the fourth quarter.

Tyler Dancy, who scored 10 of his 11 points in the fourth, and Eric Liddell, who finished with a game-high 17 points, were twin terrors in the second half.

“We’ll kind of do some of that stuff, but usually, we’ve got some kids that can make plays,” Smith said. “If time’s running down and they break off of it to make a play, more often than not we’ve been OK with that.

“I don’t necessarily think it had anything to do with the whole grand scheme of things at the end, but if we turn it over at a high rate like we did, it just magnifies everything else.”

The Redbirds started slow but picked it up in the middle quarters. Ty’ohn Trimble made a trio of treys in the second, and Donovan Clay scored 11 of his team-high 13 points in the third quarter.

But Maurice Edwards finished the game with one point on 0-for-5 shooting.

West’s ability to clog the 6-foot-7, 276-pound Dancy and the 6-7, 220-pound Liddell in the paint made life hard for Alton inside the 3-point line.

“I think he kind of did, for the most part in that first half what we expected,” Smith said of Edwards. “He got into the paint, he made two or three guys come get him and he made the right play throwing it to somebody on the perimeter to make a play. We shoot it a little better in the first half, maybe it’s a little bit different.”

The Redbirds close out the regular season Friday at home against O’Fallon before playing Granite City to open regional play on Feb. 27.

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BELLEVILLE WEST 52, ALTON 41

Belleville West 10 12 10 20 — 52

Alton 6 14 16 5 — 41

Belleville West (17-8, 9-4) — Lanxon 6, Fox 7, Randolph 4, Powell 7, Dancy 11, Liddell 17. 2FG-16, 3FG-3, FT-11, PF-18.

Alton (13-11, 6-7) — De. Clay 4, Trimble 9, D. Smith 2, Do. Clay 13, Caldwell 12, Edwards 1. 2FG-6, 3FG-7, FT-8, PF-15.